926 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVII. No. 964 



Zanzibar Island, with Kufic inscriptions, 

 and perhaps dating back to the ninth or 

 tenth centuiy a.d. (Sir John Kirk con- 

 firms this statement, and adds that some of 

 these coins were of Harun-ar-rashid 's 

 reign, and bore the name of his viziers, 

 Yahya or Fadl.) 



His biblical studies drew him into Egypt- 

 ology, and one of his incentives to the ex- 

 ploration of the Nile sources was the con- 

 viction that Moses when living in Egypt 

 had taken a great interest in Nile explora- 

 tion. Livingstone half hoped that in dis- 

 covering the ultimate sources of the Nile 

 he might come across archeological traces 

 of Egyptian influence. He was not pur- 

 suing in this direction an absolute chimera. 



The physical appearance of so many of 

 the Bantu tribes between Lunda, on the 

 southwest, and Manyuema, Bambare and 

 Buguha, on the northeast, constantly sug- 

 gested to Livingstone 's mind the idea of an 

 immigration of Egyptians into Central 

 Africa. Had he lived to penetrate to the 

 countries north of Tanganyika to see the 

 Hima or Tusi aristocracy on the highlands 

 of equatorial Africa, he would have been 

 still more convinced of the ancient inflow 

 of Egyptian influence into these regions: 

 though it is a theory which it is very un- 

 safe to pursue on the scanty evidence we 

 possess at the present time. 



When traveling from Tanganyika to 

 Mweru in 1869, he remarks on the appear- 

 ance of the chief and people of Itawa. 



Nsama, the chief, was an old man with head 

 and face like those sculptured on the Assyrian 

 monuments. . . . His people were particularly 

 handsome, many of the Itawa men with as beauti- 

 ful heads as one could find in an assembly of 

 Europeans. Their bodies were well shaped, with 

 small hands and feet — none of the West Coast 

 ugliness — no prognathous jaws or lark heels. 



There is another entry in his journal de- 

 rived from Arab information which bears 



on this theory of the Hamitic permeation 

 of Negro Africa. 



The royal house of Merere of the Basango 

 [northeast Nyasaland] is said to have been 

 founded by a light-colored [Hamitic?] adventurer, 

 who arrived in the country with six companions 

 of the same race. Their descendants for a long 

 time had straight noses, pale skins and long hairs. 



His journeys into southern Congoland 

 threw a very interesting light on a native 

 kingdom made famous by the earlier Portu- 

 guese explorations — that of the Kazembe 

 of Lunda, whose capital was between lakes 

 ilweru and Bangweulu. 



In the early seventeenth century a great 

 negro empire had arisen in southern 

 Congoland, partly due, no doubt, to the 

 arms and trade goods derived from the 

 Portuguese, but partly also to the after- 

 eff'ects of the Sudanese civilization of Cen- 

 tral Congoland under the Bushongo dy- 

 nasty. This empire of Lunda ruled over 

 all the south of Congoland and a small part 

 of northern Zambezia. 



In the early eighteenth century a mem- 

 ber of the family of the Lunda emperor, or 

 "Mwata Tanvo," moved to the south of 

 Lake Mweru and founded a feudatory 

 kingdom there. He received the title of 

 Kazembe or "lieutenant." 



Kazembe 's capital was by the side of a 

 little lake called Mofwe. Livingstone ap- 

 proached it along a path as broad as a car- 

 riage road one mile long, the chief's resi- 

 dence being enclosed by a wall of reeds 8 

 or 9 feet high and 300 yards square. The 

 innermost gateway was decorated by about 

 sixty human skulls, and had a cannon, 

 dressed in gaudy colors, placed under a 

 shed before it. This, no doubt, was a gift 

 from the Portuguese. Kazembe himself 

 had a heavy, uninteresting countenance, 

 without beard or whiskers, somewhat of the 

 Chinese type, his eyes with an outward 

 squint. He smiled but once during the 

 day, yet that was pleasant enough, though 



